2017 April 26

Wallbridge v. Brunning, 2017 ONSC 2596

The Ontario Superior Court of Justice rejected the defendant lawyer’s motion for a stay of proceedings in this $15 million defamation damages claim on the basis of the plaintiff’s refusal to produce certain correspondence.  The plaintiff’s claims related to the defendant lawyer’s communications and comments made from September, 2015 to April, 2016, in letters and an email sent to a number of people.  The plaintiff further claimed that the defendant’s allegations were re-published by a self-styled journalist to unknown readers in unknown numbers via two email blogs on the internet.  The defence pleaded absolute privilege, qualified privilege and justification.  The court held that there was nothing in the evidence that established that the defendant could not realistically locate the allegedly defamatory correspondence she had written referred to in the statement of claim, to plan her defence or to properly address privilege/confidentiality concerns.